Friday, April 15, 2011

The Dirty Projectors are a Brooklyn-based experimental rock band led by Dave Longstreth. Longstreth's first album, The Graceful Fallen Mango, was released in 2002 under his own name and introduced his distinctive use of song arrangements and his combination of lo-fi and hi-fi production. In April 2008, The Dirty Projectors signed with Domino Records. Bitte Orca is Dirty Projectors' first album for Domino Records. Bitte Orca is one of Dirty Projectors' most accessible efforts to date; the slinky "Stillness Is the Move" could almost pass for mainstream R&B with its potent groove, lush harmonies by Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, and elegant string coda, though with Longstreth's wiry juju guitar leads floating over the top. Bitte Orca's nine tracks all seem to be bursting with ideas that they can barely contain, but despite the sometimes fractured synapses of this music, the songs are at once surefooted and agile. A genre-bending feat of studied musicianship, this really is one not to be missed.